Thursday morning in my own space, and it feels good. Tuesday night in Sydney was awful, I was kept awake until after 2 a.m by noise from a band in pub opposite my hotel in Sydney. A family in the room next to mine had two children, they were up and making noise at 5. Sleep was impossible.

Feeling so tired, I decided against spending a day in Sydney. I changed my reservation on the train and took the midday service. Being so close to the Easter school holidays, I didn't expect to get a seat. In fact the train was heavily booked, but they had a cabin nobody wanted because it faced backwards. I jumped at it, three seats to myself, my own bathroom, a door to shut myself in, and all at no extra cost.

Last night I fell into bed and slept like a baby. The call of Magpies woke me this morning; it's nice to be home. Today I have to hit the supermarket, I ran down my groceries before I went away, so I need to stock up for the Easter long week end.

There are over 300 emails waiting for my attention, I'll make a start on them, and then get down to my photos. I took more than 2,000 photos on my trip to Tasmania, so it will take a while to work through them all and pick out the best for post production. What a wonderful adventure this has been; already I'm thinking about possible future destinations, and how I might do it smarter.

In the departure lounge at Hobart airport, two posters caught my eye; I took a photo of each. The shots aren't very good because the posters were under glass and there are reflections, but the message shines through.



Whatever you discovered in Tasmania... Tell the world...

                                  Is where you're going as beautiful as where you're leaving?

Finally, two shots taken from the train yesterday, to remind me that home isn't so bad either.

Not a very exciting day, did the essentials, packed my gear, got the van washed (it needed it after all the Kilometres we did together) and gave it a good clean inside as well.  Returned the van to the rental company and it passed inspection with flying colours. 

When I mentioned that I needed to get to the domestic terminal after returning the van, the check-in lady offered to drive me there.  It's this kind of friendly gesture I came to associate with Tasmanians in my two week visit.  I can't say it wouldn't happen in other places, but Tasmanians have been consistently friendly and obliging throughout my holiday.

Had an uneventful fight to Sydney on a fully packed plane; a far cry from the half empty plane I flew down on.  My plans to take photos tonight went by the way when I had dinner with a friend.  So much to share, so little time.  I'll be in Sydney again and the view I wanted isn't going anywhere.

Attached, a selection of shots from MONA, I know it's old news now, and you may not be interested, but it was one of the highlights of my Tasmanian adventure.

At present MONA has an exhibition of work by the Belgian born artist Wim Delvoye

Osama, a tattooed pig skin by Wim Delvoye

Car tyres from the studio of Wim Delvoye.   Hand-decorated by Chinese craftsmen
with traditional scrollwork, plants, birds and geometric pattern so that, although
arguably ‘pretty’ –  indeed some of them very beautiful, they are dangerously no longer fit-for-purpose.

When the heart stops beating by Patrick Hall.  One of many interactive exhibits that talks to you. This and the next shot (not the Red Riding Hood shot) form part of the same piece.  The following is from the notes supplied by MONA: "When My Heart Stops Beating, commissioned for Mona, occupying its own room and including Hall’s largest chest of drawers to date, comprises two parts two metres high and three metres wide. As well as glass and metal, it is made of records. Literally, on the right hand side as you enter, a collection of vinyl LP records, redolent with nostalgia. And, to your left, records of living: a depository of people; of stories revealed, secrets whispered and emotions laid bare. When My Heart Stops Beating is part machine, pulsating to its own ‘heartbeat’; and part human."

Little Red Riding Hood as you may never have seen her before.  One in a series of disturbing episodes from the fairy tale from a horror perspective.

Bit.Fall by Julius Popp.  An amazing waterfall.

Fat Car by Erwin Wurm. 
Porsche Carrera chassis, body and interior, with polystyrene and fibreglass

And finally, from the same day, a sunset shot, taken from Marg's deck overlooking the Derwent.  Imagine being forced to witness scenes like this almost any day of the year.

Another night with a lousy internet connection. I've been trying for four hours to get online, but it isn't happening. Fifteen Km from the centre of Hobart, five bars and no connection; not happy. Some nights it improves towards midnight, so I'm writing my blog on my word processor in the hope I'll get online later.

Today I took a drive down the Tasman Peninsula, Port Arthur is on the Tasman Peninsula, I've been there twice before, so it wasn't my destination today. Rather, I wanted to visit the Tesselated Pavement, Devil's Kitchen, Tasman Arch and Blowhole.

The weather started out bright and sunny, but turned cloudy in the early afternoon. I took some photos, but not many. A cold wind blew up, the sky clouded over and the temperature dropped, so I came back to the camp site. Because Tasmania is fairly close to Antarctica, cold fronts come up from the south and the weather can change is a matter of minutes. I never mentioned that I saw snow on the mountains when I was in the north last week.

Tomorrow I head for home, but I'll be busy before I catch my plane. I need to get to a car wash, I've laundry that needs doing, at present it's stuffed into a backpack. When my gear is clean it will fit into my case, and I'll pack my bags. I certainly brought too many clothes, but better too many than not enough.

The van has to be back before 3, I'll have it there by 2. Check in for my flight is at 3, I'm glad to be on an afternoon flight. I'll be in Sydney at 6:30, say 7:30 at my hotel. Then it's dinner and if the weather is okay, I'll try to get the night shots that got rained out on my trip south.

I planned to include some shots tonight, but I'll post this the minute I can get online, and not push my luck any more than necessary. Bring on the NBN, the sooner the better!!  Some MONA shots tomorrow, at least in Sydney I'll have a decent connection.

Another amazing day divided into two equally exciting halves.  The first half at Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) - an astonishing, confronting, exciting and spectacular experience.  An art gallery like nothing I've ever seen before.  I could write volumes, and bore you all to death, but I won't.  There are sites devoted to this magnificent museum, seek them out for yourself. 

At the end of a visit to MONA, you can have a link emailed to you that lets you re-experience your visit and see again the works you saw and rated.  As I said, MONA is like no other museum I've ever visited, and it's beyond brilliant.  If you'd like to share my visit, let me know and I'll send you a link, you can see the works of art I viewed, how I rated them and in the order I viewed them.  You can also view the works I missed or failed to rate.  Try doing that at any other Museum or art gallery anywhere in the world....

The second half of my day was spent visiting Marg, a fellow photographer who shares her photos on Webshots.  I spent a lovely afternoon with Marg, who was warm, welcoming and a generous host who invited me to stay for a delicious dinner.  Please visit Marg's photos at http://community.webshots.com/user/tasglass7 and enjoy her photos, she's a beautiful person. 

It's late as I write, and I've not downloaded today's photos from my camera.  I have about a hundred photos from MONA and some beautiful sunset shots taken from Marg's deck overlooking the Derwent River.  I'll share a few of each in tomorrow's blog.

This morning I looked out to a damp and misty morning, with people gathered along the bank of Sassafras Creek. Fast as I could I joined them and somebody soon pointed out the platypus swimming in the fast running water. Although the light was poor, and the platypus fast, I managed to take over 100 photos, many of them rubbish.

The platypus swam up stream against a strong current. It came up for air every few minutes, swam on the surface, them dived to the bottom. Although the water was fairly clear, the platypus stirred up clouds of silt as it foraged for food with its bill on the bottom of the creek.

Built across the creek are a series of stone barrages, man made by the look of them. When the platypus came to a barrage, it climbed over it with apparent ease. The platypus we watched crossed two barrages, and some way beyond the second it abruptly turned around and allowed the current to carry it back to a deep and fairly still pool in the creek. When it got there, it disappeared and the show was over. Some people said the platypus has its burrow in the bank on the far side of the creek.

Climbing up a stone barrage

Mission Accomplished

Happy with the shots I got, I returned to my van, ate breakfast and set about preparing to leave. Even as I did this, people were still scanning the creek for the platypus, but it didn't come out again. They would probably have had more success staking out the other three platypuses who live near by. I just counted myself lucky to have seen two of them, one yesterday and another today.

It came on to rain and the whole valley took on a beauty of its own. Apart from the platypuses, this was a community of lovely people in a beautiful setting; I could have stayed there for days and just enjoyed the surroundings, rain or no rain. But it was time to travel, so I hit the road.

The view across Sassafras Creek from my van site.
Even in the misty rain it was a place to linger and harmonize with nature.

There were very few photos after I left Mole Creek, I was focussed on reaching Hobart by day's end. Tasmania is amazing to a mainlander like myself, it's so small and so diverse. The drive from Launceston to Hobart takes about 2½ hours and passes through some beautiful farming country. I took my time and stopped at a few historical sites along the way. The further south one travels, the older are the little towns with their convict era buildings and names. It's at once picturesque and quaint.

Following are three Platypus photos that would have been in yesterdays blog.

Now some shots from yesterday of Trowunna Wildlife Park

A Tasmanian Devil at Trowunna Wildlife Park.  Their breeding program is quite successful,
they've bred eleven generations of Devils without any facial tumor infections. 
On the day of my visit they were expecting three new babies to be born. 
The keepers were quietly confident.  

I looked into a Wombat's lair and made eye contact with this joey clinging
to its mother.  It looked at me briefly and shut its eyes; I took a photo.

I have many more shots from Trowunna, but uploading photos is the riskiest part of writing this blog.  But Finally, todays action photo: proof that youth is wasted on the young.  All three girls on the far side ran across the bridge, while I waited to get shots for the Coronor.

Blog for Friday 30th March, 2012

Every day seems to have a theme, today it was wildlife. When I left Devonport his morning, my intention was to drive to Hobart. The sky was cloudy, there was a little rain; it looked like being a lost day. This should have been my day to visit Dove Lake, but the blanket of cloud over the mountains said otherwise. But, near Deloraine the cloud seemed to lift, so I decided to at least drive towards Dove Lake.

Not long after I committed to the road to Dove Lake via Mole Creek, the cloud closed in and it started to rain. Even so the drive was pretty, and I knew there are caves I could visit at Mole Creek. Shortly before Mole Creek I came upon Trowunna Wildlife Park, with pictures of Tasmanian Devils. Why not, I thought.

Trowunna Wildlife Park is a rather sad place, it's a wildlife rescue park running a quarantined breeding program for Tasmanian Devils. (For those who don't know, Google Tasmanian Devils and read about the disease that is wiping them out).  All the animals and birds at the park are Tasmanian. Of those they have, I saw Mountain Kangaroos, Wombats, Tasmanian Devils, Wedge Tailed Eagles (three in an enclosure!) a range of sad looking caged birds (Magpies, Kookaburras, Owls and white Cockatoos). It really wasn't a happy place, all the birds I saw looked depressed, and one wombat gnawed at a fence post at the gate to its enclosure. Clearly it knew there the exit was, and it wanted out so badly. Poor thing, I wished it to dig a burrow and escape like any self respecting wombat.

Free to roam were Kangaroos and Black Swans, there were also a range of migratory birds, mostly ducks and Cape Baron Geese. The staff were all wonderfully positive and obliging. One young man let me know he was about to feed the Tasmanian Devils; that was something to see. He also told me where to see platypus in the wild.

Two hours was enough of Trowunna, even though they are doing good work breeding Tasmanian Devils. I drove on into Mole Creek, stopped to buy something for dinner, and pushed on to a creek where I was told platypus could be seen. The caves were no longer an interest.

I found the place easily enough, and saw there was a camping ground beside the little creek. I went into the camping ground to look for platypus, and spoke with a few people who said they had seen platypus that morning. That was enough for me, I booked into the caravan park and scored a site right at the edge of the creek.

Everybody here is very friendly, platypus viewing is the only game in town. A fellow traveller spotted a platypus late this afternoon and came to fetch me. Others gathered around, and we took photos of it swimming and diving in the creek. I got a few shots, but nothing fantastic, they're a difficult and well camouflaged subject..

Apparently mornings are best time for seeing the platypuses; there are four of them along the stretch of creek fronting the caravan park. I'll be there tomorrow morning, bright and early.

Mole Creek is a quiet dairying community nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains (The Great Western Tiers). I was warned that my wireless internet wouldn't work, and it's true. This blog entry was written Friday night, and posted Saturday morning at a stop along the road where I got a signal. I'll not post any photos now, but wait until you see tonight's blog...

Up early this morning, went down to the mouth of the Arthur River to get some shots. Found myself on a log strewn beach; fallen trees that are carried down the Arthur River are pushed back onto the beach by the ferocious waves that pound this coast. It's not known as “The Edge of the World” for nothing. Looking west from these shores, the next land mass is South America; Tasmania is well south of the Cape of Good Hope.

Driftwood writ large

To my left was a headland, and I wanted to be on that headland. Between my place on the beach and that headland lay several outcrops of rocks that came right down to the water's edge. They were treacherous to walk on, but I managed to clamber over them and eventually scaled the headland.

The hill on the horizon is the headland where I wanted to be,
the rocks below the hill were my greatest obstacle.

For me it's a unique experience to take coastal shots in the morning with the sun behind me. The colours were magnificent, it was a great morning's photography. After a late breakfast I checked out of the caravan park and headed north to Bass Strait. I diverted to Murrawah and visited Green Cape beach, but the light wasn't so good as it had been earlier at Arthur River.

My real objective for the day was to visit the Tarkine Experience at Dismal Swamp on the road to Smithton. This was another magnificent experience, here visitors are whisked through the tree canopy on a 110 metre slide to the bottom of a sinkhole on the forest floor. The ride on the slide is 20 seconds of sheer terror; speeds of up to 40 Kph (25 mph) are reached as you twist and plunge into another reality.

The slide descends into the forest:
20 seconds of heart stopping terror

At the bottom you step out into Dismal Swamp, a natural blackwood forest sinkhole, believed to be the only one in the world. Formed over thousands of years by dissolving dolomite, the 40 metre deep sinkhole is a unique forest habitat supporting a range of plant and animal species.

There are a dazzling array of boardwalks to follow, or visitors may hire a bike for longer tours in the forest floor. I opted for a self guided boardwalk tour, but soon found the walks are interconnected, and soon I was hopelessly lost. The dense forest all looks the same, there are no distinguishing features, and no sign posts to guide the visitor. I relied on my ears and the voices of other visitors to guide me back to my starting point.

It's not true to say there were no distinguishing features, there were in fact quirky features, such as a very tall door across one boardwalk, weird works of art, skeletons of prehistoric animals, and distinctive carved seats.  Each told me I'd passed that way before, but offered no direction to the exit.  A maze in a forest in a sinkhole; at least it's something different.  In places the boardwalk was elevated, almost at tree top level; that too was unique. It really was a great experience, but not for anybody on a tight schedule. 

An unforgetable door in a forest
with no distinguishing features.

Admission included two rides on the slide, which meant two 400 metre climbs out of the sinkhole. My second ride was much faster, and more scary, than the first. My first ride was slowed by moisture on the slide (I never asked how it got there), not so on the second ride. By then many people had made the descent and the slide was bone try and much faster.

With hairnet and helmet in place, Mr Intrepid waits to be
shoved down the slide and into the sinkhole.

In all I spent about four hours at Dismal Swamp, I took 195 photos for the day, and I loved my visit to the Tarkine Experience. As a rule, I never buy souvenirs from my visits anywhere, for me my photos are my souvenirs, but today I bought a cap and a t-shirt. I loved every minute of it.

The latter part of the afternoon was an easy drive along the Bass Highway to Devonport where I'm staying tonight. My internet connection is slow and unreliably again tonight, but I'll do my best; lucky I'm with Telstra.